


let your ghosts go

by kyluxtrashcompactor



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Estrangement, M/M, Mutual Pining, Sith Kylo Ren, piracy as a stepping stone to galactic domination
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 12:48:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17060081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyluxtrashcompactor/pseuds/kyluxtrashcompactor
Summary: Just as everything was beginning to fall apart for the First Order, Kylo Ren had walked away. Not only from the floundering war machine, but from his lover. Hux should have gone down with his ship like a true soldier, but he wasn't ready to die.Now he's spent two years alone and in hiding from the burgeoning New Republic. Two things keep him going: the belief that one day destiny will come calling, and that he will get a chance to kill Kylo Ren.When that chance finally comes, however, he realizes that perhaps Ren has been his destiny all along.(this is a repost of a fic I deleted)





	let your ghosts go

**Author's Note:**

> A number of circumstances made me feel pretty crappy about this fic not long after I posted it, so I deleted it. I sorted myself out, and decided to repost it because I was proud of it.

The city fell away below his window and it rose above it. The only accord the massive buildings struck was that they blotted out everything beyond—the paved streets far below and the sun and the sky above. If there even was a sun. It had been a long time since Hux had seen natural light. Not even stars.

He imagined the picture he made here, a wan and drawn face in a frame, separated from the empire that might once have been his by cheap glass too brittle for a starship. There had once been a time when he was too cautious to show himself this way, but that was years before he’d realized that he was only a drop of water in a massive, teeming, indifferent sea.

He’d commanded armies once, been the face of many, and was now master of none.

This was his habit now, every morning. He woke before his alarm and lay on his hard mattress, feeling the sagging springs bite into his stiff muscles. Then he rose, crossed to the window, and stared out at the riot of lights and the ever-flowing veins of air traffic. He gazed at the impressionistic smattering of lights in the smog and thought of the millions of lives being lived in ignorance of the fact that they harbored a destroyer of suns like a black hole in their midst. He hated it and he took comfort in it. He was no one.

But he was alive.

“You’re a melodramatic fool,” Hux muttered to himself, sighing. His breath fogged the window, obscuring his view. He lifted a hand to swipe away the moisture, but he stopped with his fingers just shy of the glass. He curled them in, then dropped his hand and turned away.

He crossed the room, ten paces from end to end and no bigger than a maintenance closet aboard a destroyer. He pressed his thumb to the key to open his refresher door, watching the green light flicker. The door itself vibrated with a high-pitched hum as the mechanics tried to pull the cheap metal door aside.

“Karking piece of shit,” Hux growled, slamming his palm into the entry pad. He’d fixed this thrice-damned thing more than once, but short of ordering a new plate made or ripping this one out and beating the warped metal back into shape, there was little more to be done with it.

He stooped and snatched the crow bar he’d left lying on the floor the last time this had happened, wedged the end into the sliver of an opening between the door and the frame, and jostled it while holding his free hand on the key. The door whined, clicked, then popped open and slid back with a squeal.

Hux let the crowbar clatter to the floor again, clenching his jaw as he stripped his clothes. The refresher was barely large enough to turn around in, much less get undressed, and he slept with his clothes on and boots beside the bed in case he had to run.

Naked, Hux stepped into the refresher and then folded himself into the sonic shower. He turned it on, closing his eyes as the air thrummed around him. He’d not yet been able to let go of the fond memories of real water rushing over his shoulders, the heat pounding out the tension in his muscles. It had been a luxury even then, one of the only, secret ones he allowed himself as general.

Some he’d indulged more than others. Some were harder to forget, and were perhaps less a luxury and more a vice.

 

_“Why do you associate pleasure with guilt, General?” The words came on the crest of a draft of chilly, shipboard air as the shower door opened. Ren had followed him in here, despite the abrupt and dismissive way Hux had left the bed following their impassioned, near-violent fuck._

_The door closed again and the pocket of cold air was filled with steaming vapor. Ren stepped up behind him, his presence too large and too intrusive and always, always under Hux’s skin._

_“Pleasure is a building block for attachment,” Hux answered, shoulders hunched forward and head bowed under the torrent of hot water. It ran into his mouth as he spoke, and he spit it out._

_Ren’s hands were on his hips then, calloused thumbs pressing into the divots at the base of Hux’s spine. Hux flinched, but the shower was too small for him to pull away. And Ren’s hands, damn him, felt good. They made him feel delicate, like some precious, expensive thing._

 

Hux pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes, feeling a headache forming behind them. It was a psychosomatic reaction to the rage that he carried like a disease, latent until it wasn’t. Until something stirred it.

He shut the sonic off and stepped out of the stall. The sink was only two steps away, and he shuffled to it. He brushed his teeth, only lifting his eyes once to glance at the mirror and then away just as quickly. The thing wasn’t made of glass, but some sort of polished, reflective plastic, and months ago Hux had taken his fist to it until his knuckles were split and the surface was pocked with red-smeared craters, distorting his image enough that it was just undulating, indistinct colors. He no longer had to see his hollow, green eyes or the way the burn scar marred the right side of his face from orbital socket to ear lobe.

He trimmed his beard by touch—keeping it neat was an acquiescence to his fastidious nature that he had no intention of sacrificing, even if no one outside this room would ever see his face again. Not with the mask he wore.

Dressing was an exercise in stoicism, as not a thing that he owned was ever really clean. There was only so much that sonic machines could do with grease stains and caked-on engine oil, nor the lingering smell of the maintenance pits. Some mornings, the feeling of a fresh, crisp uniform was the thing he craved the most.

But it was the last of his morning rituals that was probably the one which made him feel the most human, the most like his old self, and he’d yet to decide if that particular anamnesis was healthy or if it would, over a broad enough expanse of time, tear away his sanity entirely.

There was one table in the room—a well-used, dented metal slab with more than one set of initials carved into it, and bits and pieces of languages Hux didn’t recognize. On it, Hux had collected a few things that brought him comfort, and one of those was a little metal tea-kettle with worn rubber wrapped around the handle. He had a single hot plate in place of a stove, and it served fine to heat water to boiling so he could make a hot cup of a tea.

Tea, good tea, was something that was, just like anything with habit-forming properties, easy to find in this city. He’d gotten his hands on a box of the same brand of bitter Tarine that he’d favored when he’d commanded the Finalizer. He spent more of his wage on it than he should, but there was little else that he indulged in.

Once the bag was steeping in his cup, Hux sat on the edge of his mattress and turned on the television. He’d pulled it out of a dumpster bin and repaired it himself—whoever had thrown the thing out had been either ignorant or lazy, as it needed only a new cathode ray tube to be perfectly functional. The crooked antennae were bolted to the wall by the window, the best place to receive the public bands.

Every morning, Hux watched the galactic news reports—he might have been removed, so to speak, from his command, but that could never take the tactician out of him. Even as a general, he’d kept abreast of the goings-on across the galaxy, knowing where tensions were high and knowing who wanted what and why. These were the sorts of details that could be manipulated into alliances, and while Hux had no ability at this time to act on any of the information he stored away in his mind, that didn’t mean it would always be so. If he ever got off this rock, if he ever made it back to the stars, he had no intention of doing so blindly.

He sipped his tea, back straight and torso tight, as much a military man in bearing as he’d always been. The news reports played out on the television, describing a miner’s rebellion on Taros 8 that had taken the life of a local governor, the marriage of a princess of Eshta Prime to a fleet admiral (that was interesting), the rising cost of obsilium powder. Finally, just as Hux was down to the last few sips of his tea, the program zeroed in on a local story.

It was no news that the planet Hux had been hiding away on since the fall of the Order had been embroiled in a shipping war with a neighboring system. The latest development had been a blockade preventing the import of coaxium which was, understandably, a large problem. If left unresolved, it could very well spell the end of this little conflict, grounding and bankrupting the Pelleri government. It was, Hux had thought to himself when he’d first heard of this disagreement, exactly what he would have done.

Now, it seemed, the local magistrate had devised a creative solution.

There was footage showing the governor and his entourage (including no small number of bodyguards) poised on the central dock to greet the occupants of a rather vicious looking ship. The make was something Hux had never seen before, and he was so intent on examining it that his attention did not focus again on the two parties meeting outside it until the camera zoomed in.

That there was a clear leader of the supposed mercenaries that had exited the ship was inarguable. The man was tall, broad shouldered, and well-shaped, and Hux found his eyes trailing appreciatively down his body. The man looked jumpy—despite the fact that his face was hidden by a metal and brown leather mask that wrapped around the back of his skull, Hux could sense the way his eyes flitted across the deck, found the camera. There was no audio, but it was clear in the man’s posture and in the apologetic expression on the governor’s face that he didn’t appreciate being filmed.

The footage, Hux noted, was not live, and the story confirmed that the mercenary group remained on-planet to negotiate their service in ending the blockade. Hux was curious where the governor had dug these people up, and resolved to ask around on the docks when he got to work. There was absolutely nothing there—no comings, no goings—that was not noted by the grease-monkeys.

He was draining his tea cup and picking the remote up from the bed to turn off the television when the camera focused one last time on the gang leader as the man turned to re-enter his ship. Hux allowed himself one last, unabashed look at the man’s tight ass, his tapered waist and toned biceps. It was too bad he couldn’t see his…

Hux’s eyes had drifted up to the man’s throat, just barely visible beneath the folds of the brown, hooded cowl that was bunched about his shoulders. For a moment, what Hux saw there refused to register; he blinked, shook his head, and then made another move to turn the box off, but then the mercenary leader paused at the top of the ramp to his ship and looked back to say something to the party behind him. The light glinted off the metal pin fastened to the cowl like the universe  _wanted_ Hux to see it.

It was a silver and black marksman’s badge, the first issued by the First Order for successfully passing weapon trials with the basic rifle. There was no mistaking it, not for a Hux, who’d earned just such a badge when he was thirteen, and gone on to acquire those that came after—sharpshooter and expert. He still had both of those, just like he’d kept all his military insignia. Useless now, maybe, but his, earned with blood and sweat.

The one he didn’t have was the first. Because he’d given that to Ren.

The television flashed to another program almost the moment Ren’s name pulsed through Hux’s brain matter. Now, it was like the universe was saying ‘Don’t. Let your ghosts go.’

 

_Ren turned the medal over, his thick fingers making it look almost delicate. There was barely any light in the room—just the soft, bluish glow of the star map that rotated on the ceiling above Hux’s bed. That was a secret he’d let Ren in on—that staring up at that before he fell asleep made him feel like he was in touch with his destiny, on the right path._

_“You must have been a serious little thing,” Ren said then, turning his head on the pillow and looking at Hux with dark eyes. “Only a child and already a trained killer.”_

_Hux was on his side, propped on his elbow. “Some of us weren’t_ born  _killers,” he said._

_Ren’s mouth twitched, like he wasn’t sure whether to frown. “Technically or figuratively speaking?”_

_“That’s a deep question,” Hux murmured, shifting from his side to his knees and straddling Ren. He leaned down, hands planted on either side of Ren’s face, brushing their lips together._

_Ren shifted beneath him and sighed. “I take it you don’t want to talk about it,” he said._

_Hux shook his head, finding Ren’s hand only to pluck the marksman badge out of it and set it on the bedside table, where he hoped to make Ren forget about it and all the sentimentality that had been behind the gesture._

_When Ren left, much later, Hux was too dazed and sated to do anything but watch him dress in the half-light. It was only as Hux rose to prepare for his shift on the next cycle that he noticed the little medal was gone._

 

Hux’s skin was crawling with prickly gooseflesh and he felt like someone had thrown open the door to his soul and let a frigid draft in. If that really  _was_ Kylo Ren, masquerading as a backwater pirate, than he had abandoned the First Order for  _this ._

He’d abandoned  _Hux_ for this. And what was it? If that was really Ren, then what had he done but shrug off the responsibility of an entire war machine to pose as some corrupted simulacrum of his dead father.

The chill threatening to render Hux stiff with shock started to thaw as the core of him pulsed with a red rage.

He surged off the bed, realizing that he’d dropped his tea mug when the toe of his boot collided with it and sent it spinning across the floor, tin on concrete. Hux left it, rounding the bed to crouch beside it. Reaching beneath, his trembling hand curled around the handle of a long, slim case and he dragged it out.

He disengaged the locks with his thumbprint and lifted the lid back, feeling a strange sense of relief that the contents were undisturbed. Letting the lid rest against the bed frame, Hux ran the tips of his fingers over the long, perforated barrel of the rifle, from muzzle to trigger.

It was an older rifle, designed for clone troopers in the Grand Army of the Republic, and not the best to be had, but Hux had sold his stolen ship for this gun. He knew that if he ever saw Kylo Ren again, he’d never get close enough to kill him with his blaster. The scope on this weapon was exceptional, the punch it packed deadly. He only had one clip for it, which meant he could only fire it six times until he came across more of the antiquated ammunition.

All six of those bolts were for Ren.

But Hux was only going to need one.

 

* * *

 

Hux knew he shouldn’t abandon his shift, as work was hard enough to find in this city, but he had no idea how much time he had. How long Ren would be on this planet, or if that even was Ren. Simply wearing a marksman’s cross didn’t make him that.

To Hux’s great relief, the ship was still docked when he’d made his way to the landing pads. The gangway was still down and there were fuel hoses connected to the ship’s belly like a departure wasn’t imminent.

Hux felt conspicuous carrying the elongated rifle case, though the logical part of his mind knew that few lower city denizens would likely make the correct assumption about the contents, and even if they did, this wasn’t the kind of place where someone would look twice or ask questions. That was one of the reasons Hux had chosen this echelon of society to blend into—everyone had something to hide.

An old flight control building, abandoned now for a newer construct and slated to be scrapped, presented itself as the optimal stake-out point. There were perhaps better vantages, but Hux didn’t relish the idea of having to break into anyone’s apartment to get to a window with the right angle.

It took him a half hour of scoping out mid-level floors until he found the right place. It had once been an office, most likely, and Hux was grateful to set the case on a metal desk that had been left behind in the exodus of employees. The rifle was heavy and his bicep ached from toting it, but he wasted no time stretching or shaking out the pain. Ren had a talent for being there one minute, and gone the next.

The gun was out of the case and assembled in less than a minute, care taken with the proper mounting of the scope and an extra check to ensure accurate loading of the plasma cartridge. He’d done this a hundred times over the last two years until it was muscle memory, a ritual that made him feel like he was still in control of the course of his life.

The window overlooking the docks was chest high and busted out on one side—teenage vandals, no doubt, trying to prove something. It was to Hux’s benefit, however it had come to be, as the window wasn’t made to be manually opened, and he would have had to fire through the glass and pray he was good enough to have adjusted his aim correctly. A quick assessment now proved there was more than enough space for the tip of the barrel and no obstruction for the scope. In fact, he had a perfect view of the mercenary’s ship.

There were several other pieces of discarded furniture scattered around the room—a shelf, a busted holo transmitter, and a crate long since emptied of its contents. Hux dragged the crate to the window, propped it on its side, and sat down. He extended the bipod of his rifle and balanced it on the window sill, the muzzle of the gun just flush with the window frame and blending in with the shadows of the dark room. He brought his eye to the scope and waited.

 

_“What are you angry about?” Ren asked, and the way he sounded amused grated at Hux’s already frayed nerves._

_“You know that deliberate disregard for procedure gets under my skin,” Hux told him. He narrowed his eyes. “Maybe that’s why you do it.”_

_Ren’s furrowed brow smoothed, like Hux had just given him the answer he’d been looking for. But then he smiled, eyes sparkling, which wasn’t the reaction Hux had expected. Or wanted. The bastard had disappeared a fortnight ago without notice, taking his prototype shuttle on a run to stars knew where, because he hadn’t logged the flight or relayed his position once to the general charged by the Supreme Leader to protect him. All assets expendable._

_Ren was walking toward him now. Sauntering, more like it, with those sure, predatory steps like a loth-cat approaching an animal in a snare._

_“You missed me, General,” he purred._

_Hux’s hand twitched, wanting to fly out and slap Ren’s smug face. “Hardly. I just don’t want to explain to Snoke why I can’t keep his pet safely in his cage.”_

_Ren had reached him now. They were in Hux’s quarters, where Ren had come in response to an angry summons moments after his return to the Finalizer. He reached up to touch Hux’s face with cold, gloved fingers, and Hux didn’t even manage to flinch away like he didn’t want it._

_“You don’t need to keep me safe in my cage,” Ren said, voice low. He leaned in, and just before he kissed Hux’s lips, he added, “just content.”_

 

Hux shifted uncomfortably, blinking the memory away. He was never going to be able to accomplish what needed to be done if he couldn’t focus. As it was, he’d been staring through the scope with only half a mind, attention sacrificed to the pull of the past.

He sat up straight, flexed his back muscles and rolled his head to loosen his neck, then peered through the lens again.

His heart jumped when he saw that there were three men at the base of the gangway now that hadn’t been there moments before. He recognized one of them from the news recording, wearing a two-thirds, opaque visor not unlike the one that Hux wore every time he left his quarters because his face had once been plastered across the galaxy presaging an end to the _loathsome Republic_. One that he’d personally meted out with great fanfare.

It was true that those people he had chosen to hide among here didn’t ask questions, but that could just mean a bullet in the back of his skull without an explanation. And maybe one he deserved.

Hux’s eyes flicked from person to person on the teeming flight dock, searching for Ren and finally allowing himself to wonder if he’d just imagined him. If his mind had finally started to fray with the strain of being part of a social species that never spoke to anyone for fear of someone recognizing his voice. Of never looking anyone in the eye.

 

_“You have sad eyes,” Ren told him, thumb tracing Hux’s face from occipital lobe to cheek, smoothing across the hair of his eyebrow. “Like an overcast morning.”_

_Hux’s impulse was to turn his face away, to reject being touched just like he’d done since he was a child, but he could never make himself do that with Ren._

_“That’s ridiculous,” he said instead, trying to sound like he was mocking Ren, when the words actually tugged at something in his chest. “Are you moonlighting as a poet?”_

_“And you feel empty,” Ren added, like Hux hadn’t spoken at all. He touched the tips of two fingers to Hux’s chin and tilted his face up to account for the two inches of difference in height. “But you can’t make it go away. Can’t fill it with enough power to make up for what you weren’t given as a child.”_

_Hux did slap Ren’s hand away then, but Ren caught him by the wrist and pressed close to him, backing him against the viewport window until Hux was pinned between Ren’s warm body and the cold veneer of space._

_“I didn’t ask you here for this,” Hux hissed, turning his head and struggling weakly to get away, then slumping when he felt Ren’s lips on his neck, making a path to his ear._

_“Yes you did.”_

 

When Hux’s head cleared again, the man Hux was sure was Ren was standing at the top of the gangway, talking to one of the deck crew. Skin alight with anticipation, Hux adjusted the scope so that he could look for anything besides that marksman’s badge to prove his suspicions.

There was no doubt that the man was built like Ren, and he carried himself with that same brooding intensity. The badge was still there, pinned to the rough fabric of the cowl just below the hollow of a long, pale throat. Hux’s pulse shot up when he saw the dark moles speckling that neck, little imperfections Hux had kissed wherever he found them on Ren’s body.

But anyone could have those marks, Hux told himself, clenching his teeth and trying not to let himself be distracted by unwanted thoughts. He had to find proof. Something incontrovertible.

Seconds ticked into minutes while Hux watched this man-that-could-be-Ren talk to the deck crew. At last, with a casually dismissive gesture, the mercenary turned to move back into the ship. It was at that moment that the angle of his face gave Hux a clear view of the scar Ren had taken in that first battle with the scavenger girl. Hux would know that brand anywhere.

 

_“Stop it,” Ren snapped, rolling away from Hux’s questing fingers, trailing down the scar on his face. The bed shifted beneath his weight and from the angry way he jerked the black satin sheet up and over himself._

_Hux barely swallowed a chuckle at the way this massive, powerful man could be so much like a child, but Ren wouldn’t have taken it for the fondness it was. Hux moved, sharing the pillow that Ren was pressing his face into to hide it._

_“You shouldn’t be ashamed of it,” Hux said, stroking his palm from Ren’s shoulder to his elbow, enjoying the way he felt Ren’s skin pebble with gooseflesh from the light touch. He was so responsive, even to little gestures like that._

_“It’s just a reminder of my failure,” Ren growled, and Hux could feel the anger beginning to emanate from him like a cloud forming._

_Hux dipped his head, kissing Ren’s temple, then his cheekbone, knowing this subject was a knife-edge. “A scar is just a healed wound, not a mark of shame. It can just mean you survived something that might have killed you, and there’s strength in that. Not weakness.”_

_Ren was silent for a moment, and then the tension seemed to drain out of him. He turned his head and met Hux’s eyes, and there were so many unspoken things in that dark gaze. Things Hux both wanted to hear and did not._

 

_“Hux….”_

 

The memory stuttered, flipped off like a switch, and Hux realized with an awful, sick dread that the sound of Ren saying his name had not been a part of that one. Ren had said something completely different that night, something Hux could never forget no matter how much he wanted to.

He focused again through the scope, and found a pair of haunted, brown eyes staring straight into the window where Hux hid with the sniper rifle.

Hux’s finger twitched over the trigger, the resolve he’d been so sure he’d nurtured to fruition slipping away like water down a drain. He took a deep breath to steel himself, adjusted his posture minutely and shifted the gun a millimeter up until Ren’s forehead was centered in the scope.

Ren was still looking up, though Hux wasn’t sure he’d actually seen anything—just Force intuition, maybe. Ren had always been half-immersed in what felt like another dimension to Hux. His finger came to rest fully on the trigger then, the plastic cool beneath his skin. He took another deep breath and tensed, telling himself that he could do this, that in the end it didn’t really matter if it was actually Ren. He would let himself believe it was. He’d watch the merc’s head explode, paint the ship behind him red, and no one would be able to find enough pieces to make a likeness. It would be one less ghost Hux had to live with.

And then Ren moved, and for a split second Hux thought he’d lost his chance. But instead of turning away, walking back into the ship, or making some attempt to hide, Ren faced him. He turned his whole body so that he made the easiest possible target and, with just a twitch of his wrists, splayed his hands out at his sides in a gesture that rang in Hux’s head as  _try it_.

It was too karking late. Hux had seen Ren stop blaster bolts in mid-air, and the only chance Hux had ever had of killing him was with the total advantage of surprise. But he hadn’t been able to keep his mind quiet, had basically made himself a beacon, and now Ren’s shields were up.

Hux swore aloud, his voice cracked from disuse, and jerked away from the window. He yanked the gun with him, but it clattered to the floor beside him as he sank down, back to the wall. He couldn’t breathe, suddenly. His chest was heaving but not enough air getting through, so he ripped the visor off his head and let it tumble to his lap. He slid his trembling fingers back through sweat-damp hair and hung his head, trying to catch his breath and slow his pounding heart. Ren would be here any moment. He should pick up the gun. He should take this second chance to die like a true soldier.

 

_“You underestimate yourself,” Ren said._

_Hux laughed, deep and from the belly. “I’m sorry, have we met? My name is Armitage Hux and I once destroyed an entire star system because I believed that I could.”_

_Ren smiled, huffing a soft laugh and rolling his eyes. They were standing on the bridge. It was gamma shift and down to a skeleton crew. He and Ren had that in common, that they didn’t sleep well or nearly enough._

_“That’s not what I meant,” he said, voice pitched so it wouldn’t carry. He knew better than to make a display of their familiarity to Hux’s crew. “I mean you underestimate your hold on me. Every time we part ways for a mission you say goodbye like it’s written in stone.”_

_Hux looked at him in the transparisteel reflection, but didn’t face him. “We’re at war, Ren. Every goodbye might be the last.”_

_Ren met his eyes in the reflection. “I’ll always come back to you, Hux. I mean it.”_

 

“You didn’t believe me then.”

Hux had the gun across his lap, but hadn’t bothered to wrap his hand around the grip. “One of my wiser impulses,” he said, refusing to look up. He didn’t want to see him, close up.

The shadows mutated as Ren moved. Hux heard the whisper of his boot soles on the dusty concrete floor as he drew closer. He crouched down an arm’s length from Hux’s prone body, but made no move to touch him.

“You’re thin,” he said, having the audacity to sound worried.

Hux’s head snapped up then, and with a lightning fast flick of his hand he’d snatched the dagger out of his boot and slashed it toward Ren, who made no move to stop him. It was with utter shock that Hux felt the tip of the blade tear through the outer fabric of Ren’s tunic, leaving a thin red line that welled up with blood on his bicep. Ren’s face was invisible behind the mask, but Hux heard him grunt.

The rage at Hux’s core began to burn again and he squeezed the hilt of the blade so tightly that his fingers ached. He pushed himself to his feet unsteadily, one leg asleep, and glowered at Ren.

“Your last act in my life will be to mock me?” he growled. “Just like when I had you in my sights behind the gun?” That gun was on the floor now, on its side. Useless.

Ren was looking up at him, just letting himself bleed, like the wound was nothing to him. Which was what Hux had always been to him.

“That’s not true,” Ren said, uncoiling from his crouch. “But if you truly want to kill me, than I would want you to.”

Hux fought anxious laughter. “Melodramatic as always, Ren.”

Ren shrugged, then reached up and put his hands on the helmet he wore. Hux’s body flinched with the desire to stop him, not wanting to see his face, but then the helmet was off and Ren let it fall to the floor.

Hux’s breath caught in his chest in a knot of super-condensed emotions; anger, hurt, and a bone-deep sense of betrayal formed the hard shell of it, holding back what Hux knew was at the core of it all, whether he wanted to admit it or not.

Ren looked the same. Hux had almost expected him to appear older, that dark hair graying at the temples or his amber eyes creased at the corners with fine lines. But it had only been two years, truthfully, not the lifetime it felt like to Hux. If anything, Ren looked as though he slept as little as Hux, his amber irises made fever-bright by the purplish circles under his eyes.

It was a moment before Hux realized that Ren was studying him as well—Hux saw his eyes light on the scar that marred his temple, and a small crease appeared between Ren’s brows. He started to lift his hand, but stopped.

“How did you know I was here?” Ren asked, gesturing to the rifle on the ground.

“I saw you on the tele-news,” Hux said, flexing his fingers around the hilt of the blade, which was moist from his clammy palm.

Ren’s eyes tracked to the window and he opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it and lifted his hand to touch the marksman’s medal pinned to his cowl. He looked at Hux again.

“And you wanted me dead,” he said, the words delivered without emotion. Just a statement of fact. “I don’t blame you.”

Hux had not been expecting that, and he stood there mutely, mouth open. Ren seemed to be waiting for him to say something, however, and so Hux sucked in a deep breath and said, “You spoke in past tense.”

Ren’s lips twitched, and he chewed on the inside of one cheek like he always did when he was carefully picking his words.

“I would not have been any good to you if I had stayed. The opposite, I think.”

“You lit a fuse and walked away!” Hux said, only belatedly realizing how those words could be construed to mean something far more personal than what Ren had done to the First Order. “You left the Order to be picked apart by a power no one but you could have defended it against.”

“You’re wrong,” Ren said. “I would have only destroyed myself if I had stayed to fight. You once told me that a good leader has to know when to tactically retreat.”

“You don’t leave your karking army on the field behind you, you fool!” Hux took a step forward, shaking with fury. “In the military, you would be court-martialed, found guilty, and shot.”

“Is that what you are, then?” Ren asked. “My jury?” He made that same gesture that he had on the docks when Hux had had him in the sights of the rifle, lifting his hands to the side. “If you really want me dead, then do it.”

Hux’s eyes were drawn to the split fabric of Ren’s sleeve, then; blood had soaked the leather, turning it nearly black. He took another step forward, whipped the knife up, and pressed it to Ren’s throat. Their faces were inches apart, Ren’s eyes holding Hux’s impassively. He didn’t twitch, didn’t blink.

“You would stop me,” Hux hissed, pushing the blade up beneath Ren’s chin, making him lift it.

“I would not,” Ren said carefully, swallowing.

This close, Hux could smell him—sweat and leather and ozone, and it was so familiar it made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

“Why?” Hux whispered.

Ren didn’t reply for a few seconds, exhaling slowly through his nose. Then he swallowed again, his voice dry. “Everything else that I’ve lost, I can live without.”

It took a long moment for Ren’s words to sink in, and they wrapped like corrosive acid around the hard thing in Hux’s chest. “You seem to have been doing just fine doing so.”

Ren’s brow creased and he glanced down at the tip of the knife that protruded from the right side of his jaw. Hux relaxed the pressure only enough to hear Ren’s explanation.

“I needed money,” he admitted. “To find you. To rebuild. To finish what we started.”

“To rebuild?” Hux asked incredulously. He took a step back then, abruptly pulling the knife away from Ren’s throat.

Ren winced, rubbing his neck. “Yes,” he said hoarsely. “I left the Order...and you...to find stability. A way to keep my own power from destroying me and everything I value. And I found it. More power than you can possibly imagine.”

Hux scoffed. “We had an entire fleet at our disposal. Armies. A superweapon that destroyed a star system.”

“And it wasn’t enough, was it?”

Hux frowned, studying Ren’s face. There was something serene and quiet about his demeanor that had not been there before. Something calculating and deadly instead of unstable. Ren was watching him as well, and when their eyes met, Hux realized that it wasn’t just the dark circles beneath Ren’s eyes that made them look brighter. They  _were_ brighter, the brown burnished to copper and the flecks of amber alight with some inner fire.

A sinister fascination crawled up Hux’s spine. It made his skin tingle with the kind of electric attraction that only Ren had ever stirred in him.

“What do you want with me?” Hux asked.

Some of the tension seemed to leave Ren’s shoulders. “I am not the tactical genius you are.”

Hux smirked. “You’re resorting to flattery?”

Ren raised his eyebrows. “Just the the truth.” He stepped forward to close the space between them. Hux flinched, but stood his ground. “We can finish what we started. Together.”

Hux hadn’t noticed Ren pull the glove from his right hand, but when that hand touched Hux’s face, it was warm skin on skin.

“I will be the weapon, and you the hand that wields it,” Ren said. Ren was close enough now that his breath was warm on Hux’s lips.

“How do you expect me to trust you?” Hux asked. “How do I know you are not one of them, here to drag me out of hiding to face execution for war crimes?”

Ren stroked the pad of his thumb across Hux’s cheekbone gently, the light touch making Hux shiver. “I expect that I will have to earn your trust,” he said. “Which I cannot do if you aren’t willing to take the first step.”

Everything inside Hux screamed at him to plunge the knife into Ren’s chest, to end this temptation, but he couldn’t make himself move. Not until Ren leaned in close to brush their lips together.

It was just the briefest touch, soft and warm and  _wanted_ so badly that a shock of fear burst beneath Hux’s skin. He got his free hand between them, planted his palm on Ren’s chest, and pushed him back. Ren let him do it, his face betraying no hurt, which was not like the Ren he’d once known.

Hux tasted his own lips with the tip of his tongue, then wiped the back of his wrist across them. “You’ve earned nothing back from me, yet,” he told Ren. “Especially not that.”

Ren nodded, a small smile curling on his lip as though he approved of Hux’s response. Belatedly, Hux realized that it had sounded like concession. Like he was agreeing that Ren could have that chance.

“Then I’d like to start now,” Ren said, pulling his glove back on and bending to pick up his helmet. He picked up Hux’s rifle as well, holding it out to him as he stood. “We have a contract to break up a shipping blockade.”

Hux took the rifle from Ren, armed now in both hands. He figured it made quite the picture. “I am...was...a general. And now I am supposed to be what? A pirate?”

Ren smiled, a roguish expression that took years off his face. “For now.” He held his hand out, fingers curled. “Come with me, Hux.”

Hux hesitated, torn and wishing that he had Ren’s power to read the minds of others. Wished that he could know whether he was really signing his death warrant.

But he understood, suddenly, what Ren had meant when he’d said that if Hux had truly wanted him dead, if Hux was really lost to him forever, then living was not worth it. It would be better to take a blind step toward death for a chance at living than it would be to stay behind with his ghosts.

Hux sheathed his dagger, and put his hand in Ren’s.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear anything you enjoyed about the fic, but please be so kind as not to leave criticism and/or negative or disagreeable critique. It makes me sad.


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